‘I don’t engage’: Online communication and social media use among New Zealand journalists

Abstract

Social media, comment threads, and other means of online communication are important to journalists’ work processes, but expand their workload and pose challenges to their professional identity. The concept of ‘engagement’ is used by news workers in New Zealand to describe the role of digitally mediated communication in their work. Engagement deserves scholarly treatment akin to concepts such as ‘participatory journalism’ because it is employed by journalists to place professional and practical limits on online interaction. Their decisions about engagement are based on professional commitments, past experiences, and the allocation of time and resources. Journalists in newsrooms that are already understaffed and under-resourced are expected to take on new tasks; like other digital laborers, journalists experience the interpenetration of work and leisure and the incorporation of affective and unpaid work. News workers have an opportunity to develop best practices for engagement and determine how and when they should engage online.

A question of perspective: Exploring audiences’ views of journalistic boundaries

“…The audiences in our study appear torn: while they understand that content creators cannot engage with an ocean of followers, they seek out reciprocal engagement within the realm of affective work and smaller audience communities. These expectations reflect those of journalism’s audiences, who increasingly expect journalists to facilitate ‘conversation’ (Schmidt and Loosen, 2015) and perform affective labour by engaging with audiences (Neilson, 2016: 13). They also seem to suggest that by defining audiences more narrowly (Nelson, 2018), and fulfilling their interests with ‘unique content [and] value’ (Nelson and Lei, 2018: 629), journalism may build a more collaborative and enduring relationship with its audiences.…”

Don’t feed the trolls?

“…Social media have been viewed as an unexplored realm where journalists may freely venture outside their traditional boundaries to experiment with new practices that will involve more audiences. News organisations have encouraged journalists to use self-disclosures and promote their personal views on Twitter to develop an affinity with their audiences (Holton, Coddington, Lewis & De Zúñiga 2015;Molyneux, Lewis and Holton 2018;Molyneux and Mourão 2019;Neilson 2018;Sacco & Bossio 2017). Jukes observes that 'news organisations are succeeding in drawing on Twitter as a tool to engage audiences' (2019, p. 256).…”

Locating oneself and talking past: Journalists’ engagement with Pacific communities on Twitter

“…A lot has been written about journalists' use of Twitter and the ways in which the social media platform's use might entrench, adapt or transform traditional journalism practice. Some scholars have argued that the journalist-audience relationship is changing in the face of Twitter's participatory culture (Bruns, 2008;Hermida, 2010Hermida, , 2013 and blurring of the personal and the public (Schmidt, 2014), and the drive for audience engagement across social media platforms in general (English, 2016;Neilson, 2018). Certainly, there is evidence that Twitter has opened up journalists' work to new practices.…”

“…Engaging with audiences was neither particularly strong nor widespread as shown in Figure 2. Neilson's (2018) interviews with New Zealand journalists hint at some of the reasons for this, revealing that although journalists felt online engagement was necessary and beneficial, they were reluctant to engage because of a lack of training, resources and time, and perceived risks to their professional identity. English (2016) also found resistance towards Twitter amongst sports journalists.…”